


High and Dry in Skyhold

by servantofclio



Series: Aderyn Hawke [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Female Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 05:14:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5235548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/servantofclio/pseuds/servantofclio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isabela fled Kirkwall during the Arishok's uprising, and she hasn't seen Hawke since. Until now. Can they patch up their friendship after all these years?</p>
            </blockquote>





	High and Dry in Skyhold

**Author's Note:**

> When I’ve played DA2, Isabela tends to run away after Act 2 and never return. However, she’s also a DA:I MP character, so officially she works for the Inquisition at some point, and I started to wonder: what if Hawke and Isabela met again at Skyhold for the first time since Isabela left?
> 
> (Also worth noting: this particular Hawke is a Blue!Hawke.)

Bad enough Skyhold was about as far from the sea as one could get; worse yet, the latest of the little jobs Isabela had consented to take on for the Inquisition had yielded a hole in her favorite hat and not nearly enough loot to make it worth the effort of slogging through yet another demon-infested elven ruin. Why couldn’t it have been the ransacked Orlesian estates, at the least? There, the odds were always good that the Red Templars hadn’t actually nicked all the valuables. They got stupider and less observant as the red lyrium got them, after all. 

To top that off, it was raining. So Isabela was already seriously contemplating what in the name of Andraste’s knickers she was still doing at Skyhold. Varric was lucky she liked him well enough that she’d stayed this far. She might have to remind him that he was lucky. Maybe she could get him to buy her a drink. Or a new hat. 

She stepped into the Herald’s Rest and felt the rain steam its way off her hair and skin. It was crowded tonight, probably on account of the weather. She spotted Varric at his table and gave him a wave as she made her way to the bar, but Varric got up and intercepted her before she got there. 

“Rivaini, I’m glad I caught you.” 

“Is there a reason you’re standing between me and the ale, Fuzzy?” 

“Hawke is here.” 

Isabela stopped in her tracks and stared down at Varric. “Hawke?” 

“Is here.” 

“ _Here_ here?” 

“Isabela?” 

Yes. Hawke was actually here, as in, in the same room. Which would make it the first time Hawke and Isabela had been in the same space in more than five years, and the last time had been right before Isabela cut and run and left Hawke holding the bag and Hawke had nearly got skewered by an oversized qunari with an equally oversized stick up his ass. Isabela hadn’t seen that fight, mind you, seeing as she’d been busy finding herself a way out of Kirkwall at the time, but she’d heard about it in grisly detail a few weeks later from a Kirkwall sailor who swore he’d been there. Isabela had her doubts about that, but the details had assuredly been grisly. She’d needed a few extra shots to get to sleep that night. She’d heard about it in less grisly detail from Varric some months after that, when his letters finally caught up with her. There was a good chance Varric had left things out to spare her feelings, though. 

Hawke didn’t particularly look like a woman who had once been impaled on the Arishok’s painfully large sword. She looked good, in fact, her cheeks filled out and in good color, and her eyes bright and shining as a kitten’s. Evidently getting sex from Fenris on the regular agreed with her, and why shouldn’t it? (Varric had told her about that, too. In much less detail than Isabela would have enjoyed. Varric could never be counted on for that sort of thing.) 

“It’s so good to see you,” Hawke said, with a sincere smile, as if nothing much had happened since they’d last seen each other, and oh, Isabela was going to need a lot of rum to get through this conversation. This was going to be awkward enough that she was sorely tempted to run again, but there was enough of a press of people behind her it would be a chore getting out of the tavern. Maybe she could make it up the stairs and out Sera’s window, or something. Sera wouldn’t mind, she appreciated the value of a good escape route. Then again, outside there was the rain. 

“It is!” she replied, too loud and too brightly. “Good to see you! You look good, Hawke!” 

False enthusiasm felt painted across her face. 

“When Varric said you were here—” 

“ _Did_ he?” Isabela held her mouth in a fixed smile while her eyes cut toward Varric, that manipulative little dwarf, but he’d disappeared into the crowd. He hadn’t bothered to tell _her_ that Hawke was the on the way, after all. 

“—I so hoped we’d get a chance to talk.” 

Isabela sighed as best she could without releasing her smile. Oh, Hawke. Hawke was going to be sweet and earnest and kill her with kindness, as if it wouldn’t be better to get it out in one shouting match and be done with it. That was what she and Aveline had done six months ago when she put in to Kirkwall. Much better all around. “Well,” she said, resolving to get it over with, since she hadn’t much of an alternative. “Here I am.” 

She followed Hawke to their table, hoping Varric would get back soon. After that initial greeting, Hawke didn’t seem to know what to say any more, and had been blurting some banalities about the weather and the trip. Isabela decided to have mercy as she settled into her seat. “How’s Fenris?” 

Hawke smiled, and turned a little pinker. “He’s well. Very well.” 

“And your little ones?” Isabela crossed one leg over the other, tapping her foot restlessly. Trust Hawke to have gone nauseatingly domestic and popped out a couple of wee things already. Isabela felt a brief surge of wistfulness and let it roll past, like a wave. If things had shaken out differently, she might have been Aunty Bela. She wasn’t much for small anchors herself, but there was always some pleasure in corrupting the youth, wasn’t there? 

“They’re well, too.” Hawke’s smile slipped. “Getting bigger all the time.” 

“Where have you stashed them?” 

“Oh, they’re at home. One of us had to stay with the children.” Hawke’s smile had gone entirely now, leaving her serious. 

Isabela raised an eyebrow. “Are you serious? When did you leave?” 

“Mmm... six days ago?” 

“You do realize he left the next day, don’t you?” 

“Oh...” Hawke reddened. “Oh dear.” 

Isabela snorted with laughter at Hawke’s shocked, doleful expression. For a moment everything was just like it had been before, and they might have been at the Hanged Man rather than the Herald’s Rest. 

Then the moment faded, and Hawke wound her fingers together, and Isabela’s tension was back, thrumming through all her muscles and making her foot tap out a drum beat against the table. Why was Varric taking so long, anyway? 

Varric returned a few moments later, blessedly, with mugs of ale for himself and Hawke and rum for Isabela, which she accepted gladly. She ribbed Hawke a little more about the likelihood of Fenris’s arrival any day now, glowering and with two children in tow. Hawke’s continual blushing and squirming made the teasing well worth it. When Hawke asked what Isabela had been doing, she replied with some only slightly embellished tales of her adventures at sea. Varric was only too happy to chip in, too, drawling out stories about the Inquisitor’s latest and weirdest adventures. Hawke listened eagerly, clearly taking in anything she could get about the Inquisition’s inner circle. 

Hawke never did get around to the point, though. She let the evening pass listening to Isabela and Varric talk, sipping at her ale, and all the while Isabela’s tongue itched to just say, “So, about the Arishok...” 

It didn’t seem entirely like her. Hawke could be diplomatic to a fault, certainly — she’d spent far more time than necessary running here and there on other people’s errands, and she always tried to talk things out before flame and blade took over — but she also rarely refrained from sticking her nose into other people’s affairs. 

... other people’s affairs, but not her own. Halfway through the bottle, Isabela was embarrassed to recall how long Hawke had dithered before writing to Carver after he went off in a snit and made himself a templar. She’d been impossible, really, fretting and pining and crumpling up far too many perfectly good sheets of foolscap on a letter Isabela wasn’t sure she’d ever sent. Hawke hadn’t even resented her oversized twit of a brother, not after the first shock of it. 

If it was the same thing now, Isabela wondered if she ought to be flattered. Did Hawke’s tongue-tied state mean she still cared, or was she just constitutionally incapable of handling an awkward conversation? 

Whatever it was, Hawke never did get around to it. She was the first to trundle off to her room, in fact, pleading fatigue and a long day’s journey. Isabela waved her off and turned back to her drink only to find Varric staring daggers at her. 

“What?” 

“You didn’t say anything to her, did you?” 

“We talked,” Isabela said defensively, and deliberately rocked back in her chair, resting a booted foot on the table. “We talked all night. You were here for most of it.” 

Varric sighed. “You know what I mean.” 

“I don’t believe I do,” Isabela lied, and drank. 

“Rivaini—” 

“ _You_ didn’t even tell me Hawke was coming.” 

“I didn’t know for certain she was coming.” 

Isabela pointed a finger at him. “You’re hedging, Varric. I know your tricks.” 

“And you’re deflecting. I know your tricks, too.” 

Isabela made a rude gesture. Varric sighed. “Look, Rivaini, just... tell her how you feel.” 

“Oh?” Isabela tapped her foot against the table in a rapid drumbeat. “You going to tell me how I feel, too, Fuzzy?” 

Varric sighed again, as if he were a long-suffering elder brother or some damned thing. Isabela scowled back. “I don’t think you’d be here if you didn’t have any regrets,” he said, pushing his chair back from the table. 

Left alone at the table, Isabela frowned at the room in general as she finished her rum. She was up here at Skyhold to keep an eye on Varric, and to line her pockets with the Inquisition’s loot. There was no other reason to stay here so far from the sea. It had nothing to do with Hawke at all. For once, Varric had it all wrong. 

Isabela slept late the next morning, and managed to avoid Hawke for the next two days. It wasn’t that difficult, really. Hawke had gotten pulled in with the Inquisitor for important meetings that Isabela wanted no part of. Isabela, meanwhile, lounged about Skyhold, and climbed the rooftops with Sera, and won a fair chunk of coin from that arrogant little mage the Inquisition had rounded up, Rion, as well as from that charmingly gullible young archer. She also did her damnedest to avoid the giant qunari the Inquisitor insisted on keeping around, and spent precisely half an hour talking about ships with Lady Montilyet before being shooed out of the latter’s spacious office. Isabela didn’t mind. She rather liked the Antivan, who, like a good merchant princess, knew her ships quite well. Besides, she happened to have a sizable stash of northern tea and coffee in her office, and that sort of thing was difficult to come by on this Maker-forsaken frozen mountain. 

It might, Isabela reflected, be time to get out of Skyhold. Let Varric take care of himself, and let the Inquisition go about its own business. Go somewhere the air didn’t threaten to freeze one’s tits off, and where a person could smell and hear the sea properly. 

She went up to the walls so she could at least feel the wind in her face, and found Hawke staring out over a parapet. 

Skyhold was only so big, after all. 

“Rumor says you’re off to Crestwood,” Isabela said carelessly. Sera was a quite reliable source of gossip from the Inquisitor’s councils. Clever girl, that, she seemed to have ears everywhere. 

“Yes.” Hawke’s fingers curled over the edge of the stone wall. “I’ll help if I can. I do have a contact among the Wardens, Warden Stroud. I’ll meet up with him at Crestwood, and the Inquisitor will follow.” 

“Didn’t know you had Warden friends,” Isabela said, fixing her eyes on the distant mountains as she came up beside Hawke. 

“I first met him during the, ah. The qunari uprising.” 

Isabela stiffened, but she knew an opening when she saw one. “Look, Hawke, I’m sorry.” 

“For what?” 

Isabela rolled her eyes and turned to face Hawke head-on. “You know. About the book, and the qunari, and all of it. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen.” 

“Oh.” Hawke was silent for a second. “Don’t... there’s no need. I got over being angry a long time ago.” 

Isabela snorted. “You never were good at staying angry.” 

The corner of Hawke’s mouth drew up. “No, I suppose I’m not. But I thought it over, and I could understand why you’d done it.” 

“I’d been _trying_ to deal with it, it was just...” Isabela trailed off. She knew what others might have said. Selfish, stupid, short-sighted. “I made a mistake, I know.” 

Hawke smiled, a small, tight thing. “I,” she said, “accidentally released an ancient magister who’s trying to make himself into a god now.” 

“The way Varric tells it, you didn’t have much choice.” 

“The way Varric tells it, I never do.” Hawke looked away. “The truth is, I didn’t look hard enough for other choices, and I didn’t look very hard at what I’d done. So I can... if that’s what it was, I mean, I don’t want to presume... I can understand how a situation just... escalates, day by day.” 

Isabela gave her a short nod. It was more generous than she deserved, quite likely, but there was no point in arguing with Hawke once she’d made up her mind to forgive someone. 

“I just wish you’d told me. Before.” 

“I was handling it.” Isabela folded her arms. It was chilly up here on the ramparts. “What was I supposed to do? Say, ‘by the way, Hawke, you know why the qunari won’t leave? It’s because of me.’ Somehow never figured out a way to slip that into conversation, you know?” 

Hawke was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “I would have listened.” 

“I know,” Isabela said. That was the worst of it, really. She’d known for a long time that Hawke would have listened. Maybe, even, with more heads and eyes and ears on the problem, things wouldn’t have come to what they had. “I’m glad the Arishok didn’t kill you, you know.” 

“So am I,” Hawke said. “I’m glad he didn’t kill you, either. Isabela... I don’t have so many friends I’m eager to lose another. I’ve always regretted how we parted. Can we start again?” 

Isabela raised her eyebrows. “As long as your husband doesn’t rip my heart out for nearly getting you killed.” 

Hawke laughed. “I’ll have a talk with him. I think he can refrain.” 

Isabela’s lips curled. “That’s all right, then.” 

Hawke smiled, and returned her gaze to the view. After a moment, Isabela said, “I don’t suppose you’d care for company up to Crestwood? Skyhold is beginning to seem a little high and dry.” 

“It’s not where I expected to find you, I admit,” Hawke said. She cast a sidelong glance at Isabela. “You know... there was some talk, in the Inquisitor’s council, of hiring or equipping a privateer or two. Something about stopping the traffic of Venatori from Tevinter.” 

“Oh,” Isabela breathed, and a wide smile crept across her face. “What a brilliant notion. I really _must_ talk to the lady ambassador about that.” 

Hawke smiled back. “Your name may have come up.” 

Isabela laughed and propped an elbow on Hawke’s shoulder. “You’re a far better friend than anyone deserves, Hawke.” 

She meant it more than she was willing to say. She couldn’t tell if Hawke knew, but Hawke turned pink while she laughed it off, so maybe she did.


End file.
